Grouper eating a window - darktable or vdkt?

I enjoyed the humour of this capture from when I recently visited Melbourne .
One rendition is from darktable, one from vkdt.
The darktable one took me more than twice as long, and I am less satisfied with it.
Sure, I could probably spend a long time tweaking various modules in darktable to try to get the results I did with vkdt, but it is the speed and ease with which I got my vkdt results which really makes the difference for me.


In case any are unsure, to save you downloading and checking the embedded data, first image is darktable, second vkdt. If you want me to upload a RAW to playraw, let me know.

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I have found the exact opposite… :wink: I find the actual processing speed and so on in vkdt very impressive, but I just don’t really get on with the minimalist GUI and controls.
It’s very much to personal preference - and skill I think!
I’m up for a Play Raw :slightly_smiling_face: :+1:

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Ask, and you shall receive …
https://discuss.pixls.us/t/grouper-eating-a-window/35359?u=martin.scharnke

Hi Steven

This was also my initial experience. Persistence has paid off, however. There’s a learning curve for every new program … even though vkdt builds on darktable ideas and nomenclature, it’s a very different beast. For this capture, adjusting exposure, contrast, and clarity (local contrast) sliders was all it took for me to get a result I was extremely happy with in very short time (less than a minute). It was probably only the mechanics of the GUI and figuring out where the exported jpg was that took me to 50% of my time in darktable.
That said, things like tagging, geotagging and map mode are not something I am ready to give up on, so I am not ditching darktable, merely praising vkdt.

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I agree! Definitely not knocking vkdt either…

Just out of interest, here’s a screen capture of my edit in dt 4.3. Not much point really, I only did it as a handy way to time myself - something I don’t think think I’ve done before.

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I may have cheated… the 50sec doesn’t include the export…

I prefer the image using vkdt but which would you say is more accurate colour wise ? I notice the sky has bleached out on the vkdt version ! ( but I do prefer it)